The End of an Adventure (1K Sgt Frog Fanfictions Celebration!)
by StuffedCrustLord
Summary: Keroro's life is coming to an end. What does he regret? Short answer; Everything.


Keroro stared endlessly at the ceiling above him. His arms too weak to lift off the bed, and his mouth too dry to say anything. He was tired. He had not been so tired in all his life. He knew that no amount of star fruit could bring him back to his normal stamina this time around. After all, age was something that no Human, Keronian or any living creature could escape. Keroro had already completely lost count of how old he had become. Had it been a thousand years? A million? He never bothered to consider such a thing until today. Keronians are considered to be the race that ages the slowest out of all other creatures in the known universe, so how old you were was usually an after thought. But now that he was finally on death's door, that was all Keroro could think about.

Thinking deeper into it, he began to question a few things about his life. What had he truly done with his life? Would anyone remember him after he had passed? Was it all wasted? What had he really done in his life to affect the world around him? They seemed cliche' to the frog at first, but the more he thought about it, the more he began to look back at the lesser things he had done during his time in the universe.

He had been a Sargent of an entire five-frog platoon. He had made friends with the enemy and learned to accept the life of an Earthling. He also seemed to recall something about an invasion, but he hadn't thought about those days in what felt like hundreds of years. He remembered what he did as a child better than what he tried to accomplish with that meaningless job. There were much more important things in his life worth thinking about, anyway. His friends and family instantly came to find.

He remembered his mother's face and the way she smiled. He remembered her voice and that carefree and joyous tone she would always have with her no matter what the situation. But with the image of his lost mother also came with the rather sickening image of how he treated her. He was such a naive and selfish idiot back then. No better than a spoiled child and his mother took every second of it. He never even bothered to treat her with the same respect and he still cursed himself to this day for missing her trip to Earth for Mother's Day. He wasn't even there to see her when she passed just a few centuries ago. He was the single worst son a mother could ask for, and she was still kind enough to visit him whenever she could. She deserved better than him, and hopefully she knew about the regret he kept as she took her last breath. That is, if she was even thinking of him. Keroro wouldn't be insulted if she wasn't.

He didn't really remember that much about his dad though. He mostly remember how much he loved to drink and his snarcy, annoying attitude. Not the best two things to remember someone by. The only real thing important he remembered about his dad was how he died of liver failure a few years before his mother passed. But even with all of his flaws, he still knew his father still loved him. His family always loved him, as he did them. Still, Keroro concluded that if he had one regret from his youth, just one, it was that he wasn't a good enough son. Maybe if he had talked to them a bit more, spent some more time with them, things would have been different. But it was too late to say at this point. All he could do now was wonder.

But with family comes friends, and Keroro had surely made plenty of those. Fuyuki being the most notible. They were friends from the day the met right down to their final goodbyes. Keroro remembered standing there by a weak sounding Fuyuki, watching as the greatest friend he would ever have took his final breath and spoke his final words to Keroro. Words that Keroro promised himself he would never forget, and made sure he kept such a promise.

"Thank you, Sarge. Thank you for the adventure."

There was no denying it; Fuyuki was the greatest friend Keroro ever had, or ever would have. From that day on, all Keroro could do was try to keep their friendship alive even after his death, staying beside Fuyuki's children as they too grew up and eventually passed on. Then came grandchildren, then great grandchildren. As each generation came and went, Keroro could not help but see a bit of his old friend in each new offspring that the Hinatas had. Soon, there would be no more Hinatas left to be friend, and as expected, they all soon faded out of existence, living on only in the ones who remembered them.

Keroro missed the good old days. He missed being pushed around by Natsumi. He missed going on wild adventures with Fuyuki and then laughing about it the next day. He missed the feelings he discovered, the lessons he learned, the people he met, the challenges he faced. He missed it all. There was no going back, and Keroro knew that. But if he could, there were still many things he would change about he acted.

For one, he would treat the people he cared about with more respect. He would be kinder to the Hinatas and actually obey and respect their rules. He would do more chores to keep them happy. He would spend less time playing with worthless Gundam models and more time talking with his loved ones. All of these regrets, and there was no going back. They would be a permanent stain on his conscious all the way up to his final moments. Pushing those thoughts away for the moment, he began to think back to his platoon members and how well he treated them. Unfortunately, the answer wasn't that much different.

Dororo was the obvious answer to how dreadfully he neglected his friends, but he still could not forget about all of the countless times that he had put all of their lives in peril because of his stupid ideas and needs. Why did it have to take him so long to finally learn his lesson. They were his friends and he treated his toys and DVDs better than he did them. He wasn't even around to hear any of their last words. He had long forgotten where he was when Giroro was shot and killed by an angry drunk mugger, or when Dororo died of old age about a hundred years ago. He never even got the chance to say goodbye to Tamama. His ex-Private is not dead, of course, but it still would have been nice to speak to him one last time before his own life came to an end. It would have been nice to at least no where Tamama was now and what he was doing before today. The best guess Keroro could come up with was that he is most likely currently living in an old shack somewhere on Keron. Maybe he has a wife and family of his own by now. That would have been nice to know before death would eventually catch up to the now worn out ex-Sargent of the Keron army.

Why did they put up with him for so long? What was it that made Fuyuki care about being his friend so much? Why did they stick by him through all of it? Keroro knew that he would probably never know the answers to any these questions, but if there was one, just one silver lining to his regret-filled life, it was that at least he got to experience it all with them. Even though he may not know why they all stayed by him for so long, they did. They stayed with him throughe everything. They made his life what it is. They made it worth remembering. They gave him happiness in this world when he created none. They were the reason he enjoyed his life. They were the reason he kept going. They were his purpose in life.

Keroro could feel his eyelids getting heavy. So this was the end, huh? The final chapter in his seemingly endless life. The memories he had of his life, the impact he made on the world around him; would they all end here, at this moment? No. Keroro knew that his life may be ending, but his memories were eternal. The universe may take him out of reality today, but Keroro couldn't help but smile, knowing that the times he spent with his friends would be part of this world for all eternity. His life may end, the universe may even end one day, but his friendship, his memories, and his adventure were one of those few things in this plane of existence that would always be. And with that final thought, Keroro was content.

As his lungs took their last breath and his heart took its last few beats, Keroro closed his eyes, knowing the answer to what he knew he was born to figure out. Was his life worth meaning? Yes. It was the most meaningful and important thing he could have ever asked for. With his last few seconds finally up, only one question still remained unanswered in Keroro's mind.

Where would his adventure take him next?

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_**"Everyone has regrets, but only when you look past those regrets can you learn to live with them."**_

**1K Fanfictions! Let's keep the adventure going, guys!**

**-StuffedCrustLord**


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